Railway Budget: This time its different

When I think of Indian railway, the picture that comes to mind is overcrowded stations, late running trains, tracks full of filth at stations and long lines for enquiry and ticketing. It may be because I was limited to north and East India, most populous region. But, when 65% of an organization's customer are not satisfied with the facilities, it must need to be restructured.

The status of Indian railway can be judged from the facts that only 200 km/year has been added since independence to Indian Railway infrastructure. Also, new trains were announced every other year to woo the voters of whichever states undergoing assembly elections; and they had to run on same limited track length. In last 30 years, only 317 projects out of 676 sanctioned projects have been completed. All this shows the poor decision making and operational efficiency of Indian railway.

This railway budget 2015-16 represented by Suresh Prabhu is bit different as there isn't any announcement of newer trains and jinx regarding focusing on transparency and accountability has been broken. The railway budget rather can be viewed from different angles like

Transparency and Accountability

In order to take care of projects running and prevent time delay, a new delivery mechanism and monitoring system (to prepare deadlines and make sure deliveries sticking to deadlines ) has been proposed. Further management inside railways has been said to be revamped to the need of time and increase the operating efficiency of railways. Training to front line  employees has been proposed to enhance accountability.

Services

Various measures are taken from installing CCTV cameras in Women compartment to declaring 182 as the helpline number . Although, it's efficiency depends on time that whether someone would be there to pick that phone or repair the faulty cameras or not. A separate department is going to be established for cleanliness which will ensure training of employees, coordinate with RDSO regarding vacuum toilets or with NIFT regarding linen that is in use inside bogies.

Technology

This year special emphasis has been given on use of technology by railways to efficiently serve customers. Use of Ipads by TTE, bar code on parcel handling, unreserved tickets available on smartphones are few such measures. But, how railway is going to implement such measures is yet to be seen because it's the same country where there is more than 95% enrollment to schools one side and 8th standard student unable to divide on another side. (truly, we are in a diverse nation). Also, there is emphasis on applied and fundamental research with new centre proposed to be established in four universities.

Infrastructure

The much needed boost to infrastructure has been given in this budget with eyeing finance from international development banks and pension funds, joint ventures for developmental projects with revamped PPP model (specially the contractual clause part), stress on satellite railway terminal to ease off overcrowding at metros and junctions. Also, to increase the freight handling capacity of railway that make it earn 67% of its revenue, private participation has been encouraged through freight terminal scheme.

This railway budget seems realistic with emphasizing completion of already undertaken projects, call for participation of NGO and MPs (through MPLADS), revamping the services being provided by railways and not on populist measures like bullet train. Rather, it led stress on research and use of technology in existing infrastructure. And as said in hard core economics, "All can't be satisfied with sops but can with hope" and this hope seems achievable. 

Fiscal prudence versus Fiscal deficit

In a country like India with mixed economy, government plays a major role in economy from investment to making availability of social goods and from running social benefit programmes to supporting the less developed market of certain goods. The recent debate on fiscal discipline versus fiscal expenditure is important because of this role of government in economy and state of Indian economy over last four years.

The first question that comes to mind is what is fiscal discipline. Fiscal discipline is phenomenon where government try to limit its expenditure to the extent it earns from tax, disinvestment and others. Or if there is excess expenditure, it must be controllable (regarding payment of interest) and justifiable (stimulus during recession or capital building).

 In absence of fiscal discipline, government used to have less room for spending during crisis situation. Also, it would be difficult for government to borrow from international markets (because of poor rating which depend upon fiscal numbers), huge interest to be paid to borrowers and adverse impact on exchange rate  causing low export numbers.  The high exchange rate is a result of high interest rate which would be a result of crowding out phenomenon by government borrowing. Amidst this, fiscal discipline is important and necessary.

But, at the same time fiscal deficit is also important. For a developing country like India, the resources available to the government are often not enough to spend on capital building as well as running social benefit programmes. Under such situation, it is advisable to borrow from market (both national and international) to spend on productive work.

If not, it would take a long time for the nation to come out of poverty, unemployment and malnutrition (prevalent problem of developing economy). Also, going by Keynesian thought fiscal deficit is justifiable if used to augment business activities either during depression or through infrastructure building.

Indian economy which has seen 8-9% growth rate in pre 2008 has declined to below 5% growth rate in 2012-14 (excluding the change in base year, recently done). Amidst this low growth, there was the change of government at the centre in mid 2014. At the time, government was reeling under high deficit of 4.9% of GDP in 2012-13 and 4.5% in 2013-14. This was definitely far beyond comfort level of 3% as specified in FRBM Act . Rather, the main problem is regarding the use of this deficit causing money which was spent heavily on subsidies and less on capital building. And subsidies in India has been very poorly targeted with leaking organizations like TPDS, MSP, Fertilizer subsidy ill targeted.

As a result of high deficit, there was less capital available to private sector leading to slowdown in business activities. Further, government itself has not been spending on capital expenditure, causing infrastructure bottlenecks. And worst of all, more money is available to the people without increase in business activities and production causing inflation.

But in the recent past, fiscal status has been improved with prudential expenditure and reduced international oil price. Now the conflicting point is that to go either for fiscal consolidation through reduced expenditure or go for fiscal expansion with stress on building infrastructure to support production. The resulting fiscal expansion if used judiciously will be cyclical in nature and not structural, but it purely depends upon the intention of the ruling party. Or else, go for fiscal consolidation but  then infrastructural bottlenecks need to be overcome through private players (which in present situation, not capable enough).

Disaster of Kedarnath

Kedarnath has been one among the most religious and pilgrimage place for Hindus in India. Kedarnath temple is famous for its historical importance, association with Lord Shiva and connection with some great personalities of the past like Shankaracharya and Raja Bhoja. These personalities were believed to be behind the construction of this temple in 10th -11th century. But, in the present it has been infamous for the natural disaster of 2013 in form of cloud burst resulting to massive flood.

Kedarnath temple is made up of schist stone found locally in middle Himalayas. The temple was built over a single rock as its platform and it's a totally dry construction. Dry construction is the kind of ancient construction with absence of any binding material like mortar or cementitious material. Dry construction gains its strength through gravity in vertical direction and interlocking of building blocks in horizontal direction. The building blocks are huge Schist boulders locally available in the region and cut into specific shape and size. This prevents the vertical and horizontal movement of the building blocks. And in fact, this aspect of Kedarnath temple prevented it from flash flood carrying millions of gallons of water. At the same time, all the modern construction in the vicinity of temple was washed out. 

 

The intensity of the damage can be guessed from the above image. There was massive landslides and undercutting; infact, the Mandakini river has changed its course during and after the calamity. But Kedarnath temple survived the force of nature by luck and by use of engineering. The flood brought with itself huge volumes of water and massive boulders (some of even size of 10m x 2m x 3m). These boulders were the reason behind the annihilation of Rambara town falling into the course of river. But for the temple, one among such boulder was the savior.

First, small boulders came from top along with water, which got settled in the rear side of temple. Then, a huge boulder of size 10x2.5x3 (m3) came and bifurcated the flow of water along the sides of the temple. Also, since the temple is of dry construction with use of interlocking among building blocks at same level; the damage was minimized. 

Damage was there mainly into projections spreading out from main structure like few columns of the Mandapa (middle portion of temple). Few of the building blocks were broken or missing from the corner of the temple, which can be repaired with locally available stones stitched to remaining one. 

Above figure demonstrates the damaged column of the temple, which for temporarily supported with stone bricks available locally. The only concern regarding the temple is its foundation where water gets deposited after the flood. The exact location of water has to be found in order to pump out; but the concerned technology is not available in India. And the only solution of digging is not there in the list because of sanctity of the area as fixed the so called religious guards. And it's very difficult to make them understand the engineering. The existence and durability of this great Kedarnath temple structure depends on this, which will be decided by time only.

What I learn from my friends (Roorkee chapter)

Families teach us social behavior and along with that certain constraints. Constraints can be in term of what not to do as a part of social behavior and it is a result of familial experience over time. But, it's among the friends, where we learn beyond those constraints. This happens because of equal say amongst friends and collective risk taking while adventuring unconventional activities.

This is my experience at IIT Roorkee with an entirely different set of friends and my learning from them. At the time of my admission into IIT Roorkee, I was introvert, refrain from public speaking, under-confident (inferiority feeling when met with a student with fluent English) and in a habit of lying to hide my weakness or status. But on positive note I want to remain honest to few, have a decent aptitude and believe in hard work to learn and excel.
Once inside the campus and in next four years, after interacting with friends I learned a lot what to do and not to do and this had a deep impact on my personality. The results of these learning are visible over a period of time into my behavior and character. Some of my key takeaways from few friends:

Friend 1: I never had seen such an individual who is so much confident, fearless and intelligent. Inside a GD room during campus placement, I would never ever ask for pen from panel itself (obviously because of introvert nature); but this guy did that. And he taught me to be natural, not to fear of societal bondage and rituals. But at the same time, he was not consistent and having a poor emotional quotient (gradually improved a lot with exposure to friend circle).

Friend 2: This guy's simplicity and no nonsense attitude is worth to be learnt and practiced in real life. I although inspired from this but couldn't bring that into my life till now. But what I learn from him regarding not to do is never following a path blindly. You should always keep your eyes and ear open while preparing to achieve something.

Friend 3: I didn't have any sense of style, either in dressing or in conversation. This guy reminded me of the importance of presentation and sharpness in life (still lacking a lot). Also from him, I learn how not to waste time. And from his experience in life, I realized the importance of farsightedness and rational decision making in life.

Friend 4: This guy made me realized that extreme of everything is bad. And you have to balance your family, friends, love life and academics at the same time. But one thing that made this guy stand apart was his people skills and this quality was the savior for him. People skill is something, I always wish to master.

Friend 5: I never understood the rationality behind his behavior. Only learning, I am having from this guy is what not to do. He may act in a way, that show me 'the way' not to be followed. It may be a disaster for him but a learning for others like me.

Friend 6: This guy has a lot of traits to be learnt. But the problem here is inside me, because I never took the initiative or feeling of learning from him because of my competitive nature. I always tried to excel more than him and rarely took notice of his abilities and behavior to be followed.

I don't feel that after graduation I became perfect with my learning from these pals. But I do feel that my personality has improved a lot and it will take time to personalize those envious traits. But one thing I can confidently say, that forty years down the line, these guys will definitely have a contribution to my success (up to whatever extent that success will be).

Missing girl from the classroom

Education system of India, can only fulfill the dream of developed India by making Indian demography a dividend rather than being a disaster as going by current trend of poor skills of Indian youths. But this education system (government funded institutions) is suffering from poor teaching skills, absence of teachers in government funded schools and poor attendance of students. And often, one leads to another; absence of teachers demotivates students from attending schools and absence of students has been an excuse as given by teachers.
Well, these are the obvious reasons, but beyond there are few other infrastructural and sociological reasons. And I realized this on one of my trip to a girls high school in Jharkhand. As I entered a class-room of official strength of 100 but there were meagre 30 girls in the classroom. I enquired into the reason and beyond the usual reasons of low skill level of teachers and their absence; the reasons were unavailability of transportation fare to schools for poor girls (who comprise a major chunk of students), unavailability of time to girl child to go to school after finishing household activities.
These institutions are the only hope for poor tribal and rural students. And the institutions are mainly located in cities and towns, and access to such institutions require distance to be covered by bus, jeep , train or even auto-rickshaws. But these require the cost to bear for transportation, and for those daily wage earners it was very difficult to give 20INR as transportation cost to their wards to attend school.
Girls get the opportunity to visit the (sacred) school only when their parents get the wage.
While for girls from cities and towns, the sociological factors are inhibiting factors in accessing schools. In morning, they are first entitled to feed their brothers and fathers as well as cleaning the house and then go to schools. As a result, many a days they don't find time to attend the school.
And when I enquire about the so called usual reasons; the response are quite different. Their expectations are not that huge from teachers but the problem is regarding the time, infrastructure and money being provided by their families/government to reach and attend schools.

Life is an experience and not just a bunch of paychecks

And every day, from school bus ride in the morning to a film in the night; we wish for possession of lot many materialistic things related to cars, bikes, gadgets and many others. If not, we are (so called) motivated by relatives and neighbors to be jealous of competing friends regarding aiming for bigger salaries, bigger cars and bigger homes. And in the way, we would tend to miss many life changing opportunities.
Risk is an eternal part of life that makes it enthralling, beautiful and memorable. Maybe, because of that in the previous times Kings used to hunt and went for wars (although ethically and morally wrong). But this important ingredient is missing from the life of a middle class family; that further lead to missing such opportunities in life. Either going for a start-up or leaving the job to work on a social cause or following passion like photography, painting or any other; the middle class mindset (risk averse) prevent us from following such.
Such opportunities (successful or failure) beyond their monetary importance are implicitly carrying the messages of innovation and inner happiness. But the paychecks rarely have such implicit meaning and only have obligations, so called secure obligations. But in life, what remains after all the events are the thrill associated with it, the adrenaline rush and the memories; which can't be purchased with the paychecks but through experience (with those opportunities). That's what life is.

MGNREGA

A lot of hue and cry going on over the tweaking of labor:material ratio from 60:40 to 51:49 as well as over the overall benefit of MGNREGA the so called ROI.
MGNREGA standing as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was started in 2005 is a demand driven right to work programme to rural India. It aims at ensuring 100 days of productive work to rural households during off agricultural season ensuring a minimum wage. The purpose behind the programme included ensuring a minimum wage rate to agricultural labourers by providing them a bargaining tool, preventing the off season migration from undeveloped rural areas, reducing poverty through wage based empowerment of poor, women empowerment through increased women labor force participation ratio, uplifment of oppressed classes like SC and ST and implicitly increasing literacy level among destitute's children by providing working opportunities to parents. The program is very noble in its objectives and labor:material ratio of 60:40 is in right direction towards labor intensive works to be carried.
Now 9 years after its deployment, time has come to analyze the actual benefits caused by MGNREGA and at what costs. It has been observed that number of days an average worker is provided with work is a meagre 46 days in 2013-14 with a outlay of 33000 crore of INR. Also, the quality of infrastructure built under MGNREGA are of inferior standards. A lot many reasons are there behind this debacle, starting from poor governance in job card distribution, poor coordination among departments over transfer of funds leading to delay in payment of wages, poor coordination among different social sector programmes like PMGSY, MGNREGA, NBA (Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan transferred to Swachha Bharat Abhiyaan), poor implementation of information, education and communication of programmes among rural people, awareness among PRI over their power in conducting social audits of programme, and mal-functioning grievance redressal mechanism. Another major cause which has been said to be responsible for poor quality of infrastructure is less inclusion of material expenditure. Another ground on which MGNREGA has been criticized is the rising food inflation in India and the blame is on increased rural wages in agriculture (MGNREGA minimum wage has been increased from 67 in 2006-07 to 132 in 2013-14).
Under such reasons, there are talks of scrapping MGNREGA to improve the quality of constructional works being carried out and focus towards infrastructural built up to boost manufacturing.
At this point, we should rather revise the major objectives of MGNREGA and its role in achieving those and then look at the reasons behind its failure. And if those failure can be rooted out in a sustainable and profitable manner or to scrap the programme. MGNREGA achievement has been mixed across the states, while it has been more successful in southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu who together provided 23% of working hours under MGNREGA using smart card, social audit by panchayats, use of ICT in payment of wages and closing all loopholes and dedicated grievance redressal mechanism. While in poor states like UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa there are the major leakage in the funds. But the impact is more widespread in these backward states only reducing the migration from the tribal areas of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh with availability of works and high involvement of women (near about 45% ) which has actually been one of its major objective.
Coming to quality of construction, in the rising awareness towards environment and world moving from GDP level of growth to Gross Happiness Index and Happy Planet Index of development, there is need to carry out eco-friendly construction practices and use of natural resources. And this is what has been practiced in many of the rural blocks in rainwater harvesting, irrigation infrastructure and development projects and if it has not been done, professional teams have to be deployed at rural level to achieve this. To the point of MGNREGA causing inflation, it's contribution to inflation is very less with respect to structural causes (protein based diet and low output of pulses and livestock, poor agricultural infrastructure in terms of cold storage and warehousing, increase in MSP under rich farmer lobbying). Anyway inflation is synonymous to decreasing unemployment as per philips curve and if that inflation is coming on the empowerment of poor agricultural labourers, it must be accepted. And efforts should be rather on decreasing structural causes.
The recent govt. initiative for special focus on 2500 backward blocks through enhanced funding and deployment of Cluster based professional teams to assist the panchayats in carrying out productive work in an environmentally friendly manner is in the right direction of streamlining MGNREGA. At the same time, learning is there for poor performing states from states like AP and Tamil Nadu which has shown the way of blocking leakage through use of ICT initiatives. MGNREGA has been a great innovation towards achieving equality in rural society which need to be nurtured rather than scrapped.